Page 122 of Stitches

“I honestly think she was in the woods. She had dead leaves in her hair.”

He frowned and got to his feet, pacing.

I watched him for a moment. “Maybe she wanted you and tried to find you.”

He shook his head. “No. She’d have gone to you or Ashes if that were the case.” He stopped pacing and went to the door and pulled it open. I got up and followed him and watched as he went outside, his phone out and the flashlight on.

I saw what he was looking at.

Footprints.

He looked over at me standing in the doorway.

“Care to go for a walk?”

“Yeah. Let me just grab my shoes and coat.” I quickly put my boots on and grabbed my jacket. I snagged Church’s coat too since he wouldn’t be running and might get cold, then I went outside and met him on the trail and handed him his jacket. Quickly, he put it on and shined the light on her footprints.

We silently followed them into the woods.

The thing about Church was he was an excellent hunter. He reveled in the chase. The primal hunt. If she’d been out here, he’d figure out the how and why’s of it.

That made me nervous.

We already had too much shit going on. I was really hoping she’d gone out just to look for him and not something else.

Whatever that something else could have been I didn’t want to contemplate.

We followed the prints for a long time as they wound through the woods. When they stopped it was in a small clearing.

Church looked around, shining his flashlight.

“There,” he said, nodding to another set of footprints coming into the clearing. Big prints.

A guy sized print.

“Not you?” I asked thickly.

“Not fucking me,” he said, a growl to his voice.

I watched as he prowled around the area. He disappeared into the darkness for a bit, just the dim glow of his flashlight until even that went dark.

The cold made me shiver. I looked up through the treetops, wondering what they’d seen standing here earlier in the night and praying it wasn’t something that wouldn’t break my fucking heart.

We didn’t need another fucking Bells on our hands.

I’d fucking die with Sirena if that were the case.

Church came back into the clearing seconds later and stopped beside me.

“There are two other sets of prints out there. Hers disappears at some point over there.” He gestured in the direction he’d come from. “It looks like she fell and was running. Then she was carried.”

“Carried?”

He nodded. “So whoever she was with gave a damn about her safety because it looks like there was a chase in that direction.” He jerked his thumb behind him.

“Not you?” I asked weakly.

“Not fucking me, Malachi.”

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